Star Trek has picked up another guild award nomination today, and it is a big one. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have been nominated by the Writer’s Guild of America for Best Adapted Screenplay. And the pair have already given TrekMovie a statement about the honor.

Orci and Kurtzman nominated for WGA Award
Like the Oscars, the WGA split their writing nominations into original and adapted. Star Trek falls into the adapted category because the characters are based on the TV show. Here is the full list of nominees from the WGA site.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Crazy Heart, Screenplay by Scott Cooper; Based on the novel by Thomas Cobb; Fox Searchlight

Julie & Julia, Screenplay by Nora Ephron; Based on the books Julie & Julia by Julie Powell and My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme; Sony Pictures

Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher; Based on the novel Push by Sapphire; Lionsgate

Star Trek, Written by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman; Based upon Star Trek, Created by Gene Roddenberry; Paramount Pictures

Up in the Air, Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner; Based upon the novel by Walter Kirn; Paramount Pictures

For original screenplay, the writers for 500 Days of Summer, Avatar, The Hangover, The Hurt Locker, and A Serious Man were nominated.

I spoke to Bob minutes after the announcement and he said that he and Alex had a statement, in their usual humble tone:

Our statement is in the form of a quote from Cato the Elder, "I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue, than why I have one."

This is the second time the writing team of Orci and Kurtzman have been nominated by the WGA. Last year the pair were nominated (along with JJ Abrams) in TV original long form category for the pilot of Fringe, but lost out to the HBO movie Recount.

Orci and Kurtzman aren’t the only members of the new Trek ‘Supreme Court’ to have a WGA nomination this year. Star Trek producer Damon Lindelof and the writing staff of Lost were nominated for Best TV Drama Series.

Great to see the film get recognition from the WGA, and a huge surprise.

One thing to keep in mind though is that the WGA has uber-restrictive rules, so the following films weren’t eligible (but will be for the Academy Awards): “Inglourious Basterds,” “Up,” “A Single Man,” “District 9,” “An Education,” “The Road,” “In the Loop.” Four of these are based on previous work and will likely make their way into the Best Adapted Screenplay category at the Oscars (likely “A Single Man” or “An Education”).

I think the best review of your work comes from Orson Scott Card on his site, in which he notes that most of the critics (not me!) dismissed your movie as just hype and action, missing the Big Important Themes about destiny and justice which you chose not to underline and announce.

Thanks again Bob for delivering a great Trek script, and you guys deserve all the accolades! You should know from a former Paramount guy and Trek fan, it’s good to have the franchise in such capable hands, many thanks again.

Congratulations Bob & Alex! It’s great for you…and great for the Star Trek brand that your work is being recognized by your peers!

(Can’t wait to see how the Talifans react to this and try to put a negative spin on it. It should prove to be quite entertaining.)

@19
Avatar was an enjoyable movie experience because of the breathtaking visuals and 3D. However, it’s a recycled story with cardboard characters with a finale that would be more at home at the end of a Disney cartoon…IMHO. But don’t take my word for it. Most of those “glowing” reviews all say the same thing. I’ve seen it once…and that was plenty for me.

8. Yammer – January 11, 2010 ‘Great work, lads. I think the best review of your work comes from Orson Scott Card on his site, in which he notes that most of the critics (not me!) dismissed your movie as just hype and action, missing the Big Important Themes about destiny and justice which you chose not to underline and announce’. Best review, you say? I’ve just read it and am less than impressed. I don’t mean to boast; but I have a first-class degree in Philosophy, amongst other post-grad qualifications, and can say, with some assurance, that, contrary to that review, there are few if any ‘deep ethical and philosophical issues’ – emphasis on ‘deep’ and then ‘ethical’ – in Trek 11. If you want ‘deep ethical and philosophical issues’ read the work of a great philosopher, such as Kant. This film wasn’t even intellectual for a film. If you want an intellectual film, see a film based on a great Sci-Fi book, such as Solaris (original film) or 2001. Now, it would be wrong to say that this film was just about special effects and action. But, I think, it would also be wrong to go to – or even near – the other extreme. In my opinion, Trek 11 was, principally, about emotion. The film took the audience through the whole spectrum of emotion (through sadness, pity, joy, delight, etc) and it was through this emotion that we, especially the mainstream audience, for whom there is no… Read more »

Their script certainly has its moments. The introductory scene aboard the USS Kelvin is one of the finest vignettes in science fiction film history. It’s compelling, emotionally effective and noble all at the same time. The bits with Pike and young Kirk are also lovely. There was a minimum of adolescence and for that I am grateful although the premise itself was largely an adolescent fantasy rather than an adult exploration of Man’s condition.

Regarding the USS Kelvin: Can someone please tell me why there were so many 2m/440mHz Larson and Comet mobile-mount amateur radio antennas strewn about the bridge???

^32 Alec Good points – much along my own thoughts. If we view Orci/Kurtz through the prism of their job description, they did a great job. Certianly, the movie was hugely profitable for Paramount (and I imagine anyone else that speculated on its returns). The script apparently (although to me inexplicably) connects with the “movie-going” demographic which seems to be 15-30 year old single suburban males without children, although it does have a few bones for the fathers amongst us, to the writers’ great and everlasting credit. STTMP was self-consciously intellectual and missed an important opportunity by reverting to a strange reduction “V’ger is a child”, neatly fixing Ilia’s unfortunate vaporization at the same time. It took away the strangeness at the same time replacing it with an emotional bone that was not at all satisfying. I always thought the characters were completely out of character in the final moments, going from serious and grim to idiotic in the space of a V’ger burp. The series episodes (ca 1966) were much more serious than many credit it and most of its beautiful gems are subtle, no doubt played down to avoid alienating the same audience Orci/Kurtzman seek, the adolescent male. I have long been fascinated by a Kirk line, “You torture others just to feel alive but you’re not – your dead inside!” (Plato’s Stepchildren??? O! the irony of it all…). Even more so, emotionally chilling and deep at the same time is Edith Keeller’s death, “Do you know what… Read more »

Yes congratulations are in order! There is no question these guys are talented, whatever you think of their work. Nevertheless, their Star Trek script is seriously outclassed in this group. Fortunately it doesn’t go up against Avatar, which I’m not sure will win either … but at least it can stand on its own as a genre script. The biggest problem I see with Star Trek winning an award or getting nominated at the Oscars is that while entertaining, the script is an origin story, which does little to explore much, if any of the events that occur to the characters. It’s mostly exposition for the sake of introducing an audience to the characters, with little development of the emotional themes introduced. Moreover, in the adapted category, it has to contend with the brilliant adaptations from novels, which is really what this category is about, historically. Ultimately, the WGA is a political body like everything in Hollywood. The fact that these guys were nominated speaks more to how well these guys are liked in Hollywood, an accomplishment of its own. As much as everyone here would like to see Star Trek finally get some attention, this is not the script to do it. I expect their next script will be the one that truly will be deserving of this recognition. In the meantime, this is really a feather in Star Trek’s hat for the moment. But like most nominees, will quickly fade into the background as soon as a winner… Read more »

@K/O Congratulations! And the Cato quote… now, if you can only somehow include a statue of Zefrem Cochrane in the next movie….

@33 Perhaps the 440 MHz antennae were the favorite method of the day to search for “gaseous anomalies”. :)

With all seriousness, I agree with you that Kelvin opening of ST’09 is what has earned the major laurels. Hemsworth and Morrison were amazingly good. They left me wanting more. To come back to the same Cato quote, I want to ask why we can’t get more George & Winona flashback.

Congrats to the pair of them… but I agree… Avatar? Really? I have only one thing to say about Avatar, and it’s a quote from Albert Einstein: “The key to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” Avatar should sweep all technical and production categories, but the meat and potatoes of the film (story and characters) were weak.

ML… Really? I have my problems with the “Star Trek 2009” script, but next to “Avatar”, ST09 was Shakespeare. At least Nero had a little depth, that General Whatshisname in “Avatar” was a mustache-twirling bad guy straight out of 1920s silent movies. But unlike in the silents, we had to listen to that guy chew the scenery.

Second (and tangentialy) to #8: “[…] missing the Big Important Themes about destiny and justice which you chose not to underline and announce.”

The critics, maybe, but a few of us here (myself included) were not shy in finding the destiny bits, in particular, to be hollow and insulting, since they strip away Kirk’s manhood, reducing him to a puppet with a fistful of cheap contrivances shoved, wriggling, up his backside. We didn’t miss it.

And I think Card is simply mistaken that the film doesn’t underline and announce its themes … it does, garishly. “Hey lookit me! I’m sort of like yet another scene about father-son relationships! Hey! lookit me! I’m a another speech about destiny and the high midichlorian counts of the Chosen Kirks!” But since the film’s “themes” are paid only mocking lip-service for the most part, and never explored with courage or insight, it’s noise signifying nothing except the next big explosion.

As an independent filmmaker who has tasted a tiny bit of success, my sincerest Congratulations, Alex and Robert. A wonderful nomination for you both professionally and for serious ST fandom in general. I think it was a great script.

“I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue, than why I have one.”

So, that said, why in the HELL are they being nominated for a writing award for Star Trek? The WGA may as well just finish off the last tatters of their credibility and nominate Transformers 2 as well.

Orson Scott Card has long disdained Star Trek–and yes, that definitely includes TOS–referring to the characters as “stupid” and “cardboard” and practically dancing on the presumed grave of the franchise in a column he wrote for the Los AngelesTimes after the final episode of Enterprise aired. His premise: the series as conceived were never all that good to begin with, and definitely needed to be retired at that point, since there was now a plethora of better work in films and TV for genre fans to choose from. Well, few would claim that the franchise was at its creative peak at the end of the Berman era. But that Card could finally summon-up a kind word to say about Trek on the basis of this film, after disparaging the series that gave us “City on the Edge of Forever,” “The Inner Light,” “The Visitor,” etc. is a spectacular example of contrarianism run amok, at the very least.